Lack of Emotional response

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My resting face is unusually blank and often described as, carved out of stone. This was, and is, how my face has always looked the people who have met me. I just do not find the need to make facial expressions. I could be feeling pleased or angry or sad but my face usually stays blank as white paper. The only time any sort of facial expression surfaces is when I find something very hilarious that I break out into fits of laughter. I attribute this inability to express emotions on my face to the fact that, often than not, I feel almost nothing towards situations and people.

Like for Situations: I was in the back of a taxi with my friends at night, when someone shot a bullet through the windows breaking all the glass in the back seat. We were all peppered with broken shards of glass and the driver was driving like mad while yelling in panic and anger. When we finally stopped and got out, all my friends were shaken and scared. They started asking me if I was ok or if I was hurt and I just told them I was fine. And I was emotionally and physically fine. The sound of the bullet firing and the glass breaking surprised me but that was it. Other than that I didn't really feel 'attached' to the situation I had just been in. I didn't feel the fear or whatever it was someone who had just been through a fearful situation such as that should feel. No I was not in shock. My reaction was more like, "Oh, that bullet shot startled me! Wellll, okay then....Where do you guys want to eat for dinner?"

I thinks this is quite strange and I don't really know why I would react like nothing happened or have the inability to react at all in these situations. Anyone have any idea?


Like for People: I find it hard to console people about things they find upsetting. For example someone's family member died and that person came up to me, all of sudden, and told me that their family member had just died.

And. I. Honestly. Did. Not. Know. How. To. React.

This was one of those dreaded moments I had feared I would have to face since way back. I didn't feel anything towards this person's predicament, except plain annoyance, at being forced to faced this situation, panic, in not being able to fulfill Society's Proper Code of Conduct in this particular circumstance, and my damn inability to feel anything kind towards this person and my inaptitude at sympathising or fake sympathising as a means to comfort.

To put it simply, I blundered my way through and out of it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that person knows something's up.

I can identify. In my mind, there's lots of detachment.

I've learned to be more empathetic over the years through shared experience, though.

It's learned, rather than natural.

This pretty much is at the crux of my Spectrum-ness, I feel.

lack of emotional response (click play in link)
https://vimeo.com/8423361

When I was a teenager I used to do wreckless driving stunts. I noticed that after every near crash experience I was completely calm and my friends were completely adrenaline fried. I don't know if it's an autistic thing or just a personality trait, but in virtually any "scary" situation I never lose my mind-- while most people are emotionally paralyzed I'm either logically thinking of a solution to the problem or acting on it. I feel adrenaline, but unlike most people I've observed, I'm able to compartmentalize it and can choose to use it or repress it depending on what the situation requires. I've always viewed that ability as a supreme survival skill-- the ability to think and act clearly under duress can save your life and others around you.

I never associated that skill with autism before, but now I'm kind of curious if other autistics have it. I mean now that you've made that association for me, it makes perfect sense that in a chaotic situation when most NT's are melting in a stew of emotions that the emotionless autistic would see the survival options much more clearly. I'd be really interested to see a study on that, and obviously I'm really interested in hearing about other people that have that ability.

I tend to have a "delayed" response to any traumatic event.

It kind of makes me think of the traits sociopaths have. Which is a lack of empathy or ability to relate, among other things. Aspergers share a number of traits with sociopaths though they are not sociopaths.

Well in the way I see it, I think it's because you are a reincarnated soul that has gone through many lives and maybe dangerous situations, like the one about the bullet going through the taxi, are so familiar to you that you feel as if there's no need for a reaction.

Of course this is me just speculating. I herd that there's an Indian religion centered around reincarnation (I think it's called "Buddism" )

That's pretty amazing. I guess you just have to decide the kind of person you want to be and just do what you think or know is right even if you can't feel it.